Archives for January 2009
Motion Sickness
Published on 17 Jan 2009 at 9:26 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under microgravity flight.
NASA’s reduced gravity aircraft have been known officially as “The Weightless Wonder;” however, they are known around the world informally as “The Vomit Comet.” NASA doesn’t like to use that nickname, though. It really isn’t in keeping with the image that they want to portray. In point of fact, they do […]
Zero G and feeling fine
Published on 14 Jan 2009 at 5:01 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under NASA, microgravity flight.
I grew up during the height of the space race. I wanted to be an astronaut. I had astronaut play sets. I built spaceships for them. I built Lego spaceships. I had a space helmet. I was going to be an astronaut. Things didn’t work out that way. […]
Read ‘Zero G and feeling fine’
Neutral Buoyancy Lab
Published on 12 Jan 2009 at 6:56 am.
1 Comment.
Filed under NASA.
The pressure chamber that I wrote about in my last posting is at the Sonny Carter Training Center, home to NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab. The NBL is the latest of NASA’s attempts to simulate the weightlessness of space using water immersion. In the early days of spaceflight, nobody knew what to expect during […]
Chamber training
Published on 11 Jan 2009 at 3:47 pm.
4 Comments.
Filed under NASA, microgravity flight.
Prior to our flight, we have to have training in a low pressure environment. The explanation given is two fold. First, we are not going to be in a normal commercial airliner. Yes, it is an airframe of a design that had been designed for commercial airliners, but it has been modified. […]
Big and Bright Moon
Published on 10 Jan 2009 at 11:19 am.
2 Comments.
Filed under astronomy, moon, skywatching.
Tonight is Full Moon. Actually, it occurs at a little before 9:30 tonight, Central Time, in the USA. It is very early Sunday morning in Europe. Full Moons occur about every 29.5 days. So, you get one every month. Every few years, you can get two in a month (one […]
Hangar 990
Published on 8 Jan 2009 at 10:47 pm.
1 Comment.
Filed under NASA, microgravity flight.
Today started in typical Houston area fashion: extremely humid with low fog. As we drove to Ellington Field, I saw a rather dense layer of fog about 7 feet deep around the airfield. The fog burned off pretty quickly, though. Ellington was an active air force base for many years — […]
Zero G without a spacecraft
Published on 7 Jan 2009 at 9:46 pm.
6 Comments.
Filed under NASA, aeronautics, microgravity flight, physics.
Everyone is familiar with images sent back to Earth of astronauts frolicking in the weightless environment of a spacecraft. When John Glenn was in orbit around Earth, he radioed back to mission controllers on the ground that he was experiencing “Zero G and I feel fine.” But, do you really have to go […]
